America was importing gallium from China at 50 parts per million. A mountain in Montana has 300 — independently validated as the richest rare earth deposit ever found in North America. When China restricted gallium exports, the U.S. couldn't rebuild the radar installations covering thousands of miles of defense airspace. Harvey Kaye, Executive Chairman of US Critical Materials Corporation, is building the answer at Sheep Creek, Montana — and he's not stopping at the mine.
On this episode of the Rare Earth Exchanges podcast, hosts Dustin Olsen and Daniel O'Connor spoke with Harvey Kaye, Executive Chairman of US Critical Materials Corporation, about the Sheep Creek deposit, the company's "rock to dock" processing strategy, their ore-agnostic integration approach, and the timeline to commercial production.
Sheep Creek: North America's Richest Rare Earth Deposit
US Critical Materials holds 336 claims at Sheep Creek, Montana — 11.5 square miles that have been independently validated as the richest rare earth deposit ever found in North America. Where Mountain Pass grades at 4–5% total rare earth elements and USA Rare Earths at around 1%, Sheep Creek comes in at 9%, or roughly 90,000 parts per million.
The deposit is carbonatite-hosted, with the heavy rare earths that matter most for defense and advanced technology: dysprosium, terbium, gadolinium, scandium, yttrium, and gallium. "We are optimistic that we will be able to start extracting ore from the mountain by the end of this year," Kaye says, "and more aggressively by 2027."
The geology carries one more critical advantage. Most rare earth deposits carry thorium alongside the valuable elements, and at 500 parts per million or more, thorium triggers nuclear regulatory oversight — slowing permitting by years. Sheep Creek averages about 200 ppm thorium, well below the threshold. "Very high grade, very low thorium means speed to market," Kaye says. It's why Idaho National Labs describes it as a geological unicorn.
Gallium at 300 ppm: What China's Export Restrictions Actually Mean
Gallium is a critical mineral with 3,800 known military uses. It's essential for radar systems, semiconductor wafers, and next-generation chips. China controls the processing of nearly all of the world's gallium supply — and has used that control as a policy lever.
The stakes are not abstract. "In this Iran conflict, they knocked out one of our prime radar installations that covers three thousand miles of airspace that's necessary for our defense," Kaye says. "You can't rebuild it unless you have gallium." The United States was importing gallium from China at roughly 50 parts per million. Sheep Creek has 300 — independently validated by Activation Labs, Idaho National Labs, and other technical groups.
The broader portfolio — yttrium, dysprosium, terbium, scandium — represents the full stack the defense supply chain is scrambling to secure. US Critical Materials already has committed offtake agreements for yttrium in place, with supply drawn from both Sheep Creek and allied-nation ore in Brazil.
Rock to Dock: Building the Processing Chain Without China
The rare earth industry talks about "mine to magnet" as the full supply chain. US Critical Materials uses a different frame: rock to dock — a trademarked term covering every step from ore extraction through micronization, comminution, beneficiation, refinement, and separation to a finished product at the purity industry needs (typically 99.9% to 99.99%).
The processing backbone is a CRADA — cooperative research and development agreement — with Idaho National Labs, led by Dr. Robert Fox. The technology is an electrochemical membrane reactor that executes the full separation sequence. It has been proven at bench scale. The next step is a full-scale operating plant on a U.S. Army base, a project valued at roughly $15 million. The specific base is undisclosed.
Five additional processing technologies round out the portfolio. To match incoming ore with the optimal process, the company has built what Kaye describes as a proprietary "perceptive AI" system — not a large language model, but something that can analyze an ore profile and determine which of several processes will handle it most economically and environmentally. "It can read and understand things and perceive and think," Kaye says. "It's not quite deep think yet, but it's close."
The Ore-Agnostic Integration Strategy
Sheep Creek is the crown jewel. But the larger thesis is that the bottleneck in the rare earth supply chain is processing, not ore. Mines in Brazil, Australia, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere have viable deposits — but they have to export to China because China controls the processing infrastructure. "Everybody right now in the industry is standing on their own dot," Kaye says. "I have a mine, I have a process, I have something in Australia, I have something in Brazil. And the government is trying very hard to put it all together."
US Critical Materials is positioning itself as the integrator — offering processing capability, AI-driven ore matching, and offtake relationships to mines that would otherwise have no alternative to China. The research portfolio supporting this includes Columbia University (red mud processing and Sheep Creek ore), Stanford Research Institute, the University of Illinois, Montana Tech, and Colorado School of Mining. CEO Scott Osterman — former Secretary of Commerce of Montana and former head of Applied Materials west of the Rockies — anchors the commercial and government relationships.
On the demand side, the company has letters of intent and memorandums of understanding with chipmakers, magnet producers, defense contractors, and others. "We go from the need side down," Kaye says. "If we know that we need a particular product to build the next-generation fighter or a radar that was just knocked out in a conflict, then we understand the need, we look at the universe of how we could fill that need, and we aim directly to get the right supply."
Timeline: 1,500 Tons in 2026, Commercial Quantities in 2027
The near-term milestones are specific. Confirmational drilling is planned for July–August 2026, following a recent electromagnetic survey that mapped mineralization down to 2,000 feet — covering the full 11.5 square miles of the claim — with results Kaye describes as "very promising." The company is operating under a FAST 41 mining plan and plans to extract roughly 1,500 tons of ore over 2026 for customer sampling and qualification. Commercial quantities of ore follow in 2027.
The structural picture at Sheep Creek adds to the long-term case. The mountain contains 62 carbonatite veins surrounding three existing adits — horizontal tunnels built 35 years ago that provide a direct cross section of the deposit. Mountain Pass has two. The veins run 8 to 20 feet wide, with mineralization proven at depth. If the electromagnetic results are confirmed by drilling, the resource extends down 1,500 to 2,000 feet across the entire claim area.
On the financing side, the company is in mezzanine financing as preparation for a public offering, with an IPO targeted for fall 2026. Investors interested in the mezzanine round can reach the company through their website.
Listen to the Full Episode
Subscribe to Rare Earth Exchanges on Spotify (opens in a new tab) or Apple Podcasts (opens in a new tab). New episodes drop every Thursday.
Full Transcript
Dustin Olsen (00:40)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Rare Earth Exchanges Podcast. I'm your host today, and I'm joined by Harvey Kaye, Executive Chairman of US Critical Materials Corporation. Harvey has been in this industry for many years and has seen an awful lot. He has been a veteran of finance, strategy, and executive leadership, and has been before Congress emphasizing the urgency for critical materials in our supply chains. Harvey, welcome to the show. How are you doing?
Harvey Kaye (01:16)
I'm doing fine, thank you, and I appreciate you inviting me today. Let me introduce myself, my company, and then perhaps a few words about the geopolitical aspects of what's going on in the world of rare earths — all the aspects as they relate to national defense, innovation, and artificial intelligence. US Critical Materials is a private company at the moment that is in the process of becoming a public entity, probably by fall of this year. We have 336 claims in a place called Sheep Creek, Montana, which covers 11.5 square miles of what has now been independently validated as the richest deposit of rare earths ever found in North America.
To give you an idea, Mountain Pass — MP Materials — averages about 4–5% total rare earth elements, USA Rare Earths is about 1%, and we are blessed with 9%, or about 90,000 parts per million. More importantly, we have the heavies — dysprosium, terbium, gadolinium, scandium, and particularly gallium, which is a critical mineral. We have been developing that claim and we are optimistic that we will be able to start extracting ore from the mountain by the end of this year, and more aggressively by 2027.
We believe that we are uniquely positioned to become an indispensable resource for the establishment of rare earth sovereignty for the United States and the free world, because of a combination of things: the ore, our processing activities, and an integration strategy I'd like to discuss.
Dustin Olsen (03:42)
That's great, Harvey. Sounds like your current endeavors are really promising. But before we unpack a lot of that, I'd first like to get a bit of background on you specifically and your career. Was there anything that drew you to this industry? What caught your eye?
Harvey Kaye (04:07)
Let me be a bit more specific. I have been involved with rare earths for about ten or fifteen years. But prior to that, I have been the chairman, founder, and CEO of three public NASDAQ companies basically involved in environmental issues — whether it was agriculture, water technologies, and the like.
Harvey Kaye (04:35)
I want to give you and your audience a concept and make certain things very simple. Without water, there is no agriculture. Without extraction from the earth, there is nothing — no oil, no energy, no advancement of society, including artificial intelligence. Everything that has made our civilization what it is today comes from things contained within the earth — from energy to artificial intelligence to semiconductors to chips to space. Nothing happens unless it comes from the earth and is extracted.
I realized through my involvement in environmental companies and in rare earths about ten or twelve years ago as a director of a rare earth company, that all of this is what makes the future for ourselves and our kids and our grandkids possible. To that end, we looked at this industry, understood the resource that Sheep Creek provides, and realized that one of the barriers to independence lies in Chinese dominance of processing. They control about 95% of the processing of rare earths in the world. That gives them enormous geopolitical clout, and it is what they've exploited through the Belt and Road over the last ten or fifteen years.
We in the United States have been relatively complacent, primarily because they made it easy. They said 15 years ago that the Middle East has oil, but China has rare earths. Little did we know that all these years later it became a weapon. We talk tariffs, they say we're not going to give you any gallium. We talk tariffs and they embargo scandium. We have now realized, as a country and indeed the whole Western world, that the ability to become independent involves processing first, supply as an integral part of all that — and if you can have the supply and process it efficiently and environmentally, then it's a good thing for foreign policy, for spreading democracy, for national security.
Dustin Olsen (08:09)
So Harvey, you've touched on quite a few things and a lot of them we do share — the urgency, things are happening. But I am curious: over your career, you've seen the offshoring of talent, resources, manufacturing. And now over the last couple of years we've seen a big push to bring a lot of that back domestically. While we are seeing a lot of government support, I'd be curious to know — is it enough? Is it at the same level as what you've seen done in the past?
Harvey Kaye (09:05)
I love these questions because they open up very interesting areas. Let me comment in a generalized sense and then on a specific sense about what we're doing. In the generalized sense, the future depends upon the ability to innovate. Let's start with AI. The secret to AI is obviously the most advanced chips. These chips can't — or prefer not to — use recycled materials for the next generation.
We happen to be fortunate in that we have a very robust deposit of gallium. Gallium is a critical mineral. It has 3,800 military uses alone. To give you an idea, in this Iran conflict, they knocked out one of our prime radar installations that covers three thousand miles of airspace that's necessary for our defense. You can't rebuild it unless you have gallium, unless you have certain other critical minerals and raw materials.
Fortunately, we have 300 parts per million gallium — independently validated by Activation Labs, by Idaho National Labs, and by various other technical independent groups and laboratories. What we were importing from the Chinese was 50 parts per million. We have 300. So we're focused on gallium, we're focused on the heavies, and our government is focused on that as well. It was antimony, now it's gallium — they need yttrium desperately. We have all of those elements.
And so we adopted something called an integration strategy. The way the industry is today is everybody is standing on their own dot. I have a mine, I have a process, I have something in Australia, I have something in Brazil. And the government is trying very hard to put it all together, as opposed to the very chaotic situation right now.
To that end, they created something called the Vault, designed specifically to enable the country to start stockpiling these critical minerals just like we've done with the oil reserve. With that, we have taken an approach that is resource-agnostic and process-agnostic. Ore is coming from other places that are friends and allies — Brazil, Australia, places of that nature. They are currently producing product, but they are being forced to export it to China because China has the stranglehold on processing. That's where the bottleneck is. So our approach, in addition to our crown jewel which is Sheep Creek, has focused on processing.
To that end, we have done a CRADA — a cooperative research and development agreement — with Idaho National Labs. The approach is rock to dock, which is a trademark and copyrighted term we came up with. Everybody talks about mine to magnet. But rock to dock means a rock comes out of the earth — how do we process it in all the steps from micronization to comminution to beneficiation to refinement to separation, so that you can produce a product at the purity that industry needs, generally three or four nines — 99.9% to 99.99%. Working over the last year or so with Idaho National Labs, they have developed a technology they call an electrochemical membrane reactor. We call it rock to dock. We have proven the technology at laboratory scale, and now we are working with the Army under executive orders to build processing plants on army bases — building a full-scale operating plant on an army base I can't disclose yet.
But there are also many processes around, some old, some newer, and all of them are good on certain ores and not on others. When I say we are ore-agnostic: we have been approached by multiple mines in various parts of the world, in particular Brazil and Australia. They have said — we can produce ore, but we have to sell it to the Chinese, and nobody wants us to do that. Can you provide processing capability for our ore, and could you help us market that finished product to users — whether government, chipmakers, magnet makers, the automotive industry, or defense? And in fact we have done that.
Dustin Olsen (16:07)
Harvey, real quick — I just want to clarify. Your company has a mine called Sheep Creek, and it's laden with the heavy rare earths. But you recognize that the bottleneck isn't so much the mine, it's the processing. So you do the mining and the processing, but you're not limiting yourself to just Sheep Creek. You're willing to bring in outside feedstock for your processing endeavors. Am I following that correctly?
Harvey Kaye (16:46)
I wish I would have said it as clearly as you did. The answer is 100 percent yes.
Dustin Olsen (16:52)
Okay, great. So we've had Idaho National Labs here on the show a few times and we love those guys. I am curious — is what you're working on together at production scale, commercial scale yet? Because they do a lot of stuff at small scale just to prove the concept and then let it filter out into the commercial space. So where are you guys at in getting commercial-ready?
Harvey Kaye (17:22)
We are working very, very closely with Dr. Robert Fox, who you probably know — he is considered the key person at DOE and DOD on this work. They wanted to work closely with us because we're paying for it, but more importantly, our ore is very unique. It's what we call a geological unicorn. The reason we call it that is because it is very high in total rare earth elements, but significantly it is very, very low in thorium. Most times rare earths are found in conjunction with thorium. If you have 500 parts per million or more, you have to go through nuclear regulatory authorities. We average about 200 parts per million, and hence they call Sheep Creek a geological unicorn — very high grade, very low thorium, means speed to market. Fox loved it because the economics of the very high grades and the low thorium gave them the ability to start really working on it very robustly.
The direct answer is: it has been proven at bench scale, laboratory scale. We are now putting together a project at an army base — about a $15 million project — to build a full-scale operating model of the rock-to-dock electrochemical membrane reactor that could then really start producing in more commercial quantities.
We also have five other processing technologies we have access to, and they are coming to us because they need the ore — looking hard for ore that has the heavies. And we have developed a very proprietary AI technology — what you might call perceptive AI. It can read and understand things and it can perceive and think. It's not quite deep think yet, but it's close. If we get ore from a mine in Brazil — which is a real case we're working on right now — we can analyze that ore and determine which of multiple processes — ours and five or six others — is the best to economically deal with that particular ore and its characteristics.
We also have the ability to deal with red mud. About six weeks ago we made a press release — we have formed a collaboration with Columbia University, who has developed a proprietary technology for processing red mud in an environmental way. You can get gallium and scandium out of red mud. We also have relationships with SRI — Stanford Research Institute — and we're working with the University of Illinois, Montana Tech, and Colorado School of Mining. We're developing multiple processing technologies, our own and four or five others. We're supporting that research, and we'll have the ability to analyze ore wherever it comes from, match it with the best process, and deliver it to the customer at the purity they need. We have multiple letters of intent and memorandums of understanding with known chipmakers, magnet producers, defense contractors, and others.
We're also focused on making Sheep Creek productive as soon as possible, following the appropriate permitting requirements — working with the National Permitting Council, the state, and the U.S. Forest Service. We've opened offices in Montana and are working hard to educate people that we are not doing open pit mining; we are working toward in-situ mining, the mine of the future — extracting ore from inside the mountain.
What is unique about Sheep Creek is there are multiple adits — horizontal tunnels built into the side of the mountain 35 years ago, going straight back three to four hundred feet. We can actually see a cross section of the mountain. There are 62 carbonatites surrounding these three adits — Mountain Pass has two, for comparison. These are veins anywhere from 8 to 20 feet wide. We've proven mineralization at depth. We believe there is a continuous source that lies down maybe 1,500 to 2,000 feet, covering the entire 11 square miles. We recently completed an electromagnetic survey that can see down 2,000 feet. We expect confirmational drilling in July, and if there is a lake of rare earth that lies below 11 square miles, it's priceless.
Dustin Olsen (24:53)
Harvey, sounds like Sheep Creek is awesome. For our audience listening — there are different stages a mine has to go through. Sounds like you guys are in advanced exploration, doing some testing to see what you can actually extract, and then you move into production after that. What does the timeline look like for US Critical Materials getting from the stage you're currently in into production? How far away are we?
Harvey Kaye (25:31)
We are in advanced stages of exploration. We anticipate confirmational drilling in July and August to confirm what we've seen with this mapping two thousand feet down, which was very promising. We are following a mining plan that gives us the ability to extract about 1,500 tons over the course of 2026. That material will be used for various customers — to deliver samples they can do their own testing with: chipmakers, wafer makers, some defense contractors.
We are on FAST 41 — and just to dispel any rumors, FAST does not mean shortcuts. It does not mean avoiding environmental studies. It expedites government bureaucracy so that it's efficient. We have filed a full mining plan and engaged all the appropriate contractors. And we intend to have in 2027 an extraction of commercial quantities of ore that we can start supplying people who are desperate for yttrium, dysprosium, and gallium.
Concurrently, we have other resources available — we can supply yttrium not only from Sheep Creek, but also from other sources, Brazil in particular. We've committed offtake agreements for a substantial amount of yttrium. We're combining both the domestic resource Sheep Creek and other sources to bring to market in 2027 products that are desperately needed for national defense and independence.
Dustin Olsen (28:11)
That's great. So kind of a follow-up question: over the next year and a half we'll be starting to see some commercial-scale output from Sheep Creek, while you're also in parallel working on processing technologies. How does the processing timeline look? Is it on track to keep up with what you'll get out of Sheep Creek, so you can immediately process it? Or are you going to be sending it somewhere else because your processing element of the business is lagging?
Harvey Kaye (28:58)
Well, the first place I'll tell you is we're not sending it to China — that's sort of a joke. We have identified some processes that we have delivered ore to that have demonstrated their ability to bring out gallium, scandium, and certain other elements within the timeline you've pointed out. We're also working along those lines with the people at Columbia University. They've been doing substantial work on our ore and running two tracks: the red mud track and the Sheep Creek ore track.
We will be delivering concentrate to a potential very large user that is in Asia and is building processing capability in the United States. We are literally at the point where we are starting to deliver samples from Brazil, from our own Sheep Creek, and from others to potential processors, both domestically and one offshore. In 2027 we expect that we will start delivering product.
Dustin Olsen (30:27)
I'd be curious to get some of your opinions. You understand the need for domestic mining and processing — national security, energy, defense, you name it. What is the message you're sharing with the government today to help them truly understand that urgency? And are you seeing them take action? Is the current political climate giving you hope?
Harvey Kaye (31:08)
I think the political climate is excellent for what we are trying to accomplish. Our government started to understand the problem in the previous administration and definitely understands it in this current administration. This issue of rare earth independence or sovereignty is now no longer a political issue at all — maybe it's one of the few that isn't. Everybody realizes that you must have this, or you have the Chinese knee on your neck, to be dramatic. The government has an approach. They understand what is required. They understand the priorities. They are working very diligently to make it happen. The issues are the usual ones: coordination, communication, making sure the right hand knows what the left hand is doing.
That is an area where we are having substantial conversations with the government. Our CEO Scott Osterman is the former Secretary of Commerce of the state of Montana, prior to which he was running Applied Materials west of the Rockies for many years. We are getting calls from resources as diversified as Sri Lanka, Burundi, Canada, and Honduras saying — we have this, can you process it, can you get us to a customer.
We are trying to be the integrator, using our AI technologies, our relationships with multiple processors including our own, and our ability to reach out to industry and government. We go from the need side down — if we know that we need a particular product to build the next-generation fighter or a radar that was just knocked out in a conflict, then we understand the need, we look at the universe of how we could fill that need, and we aim directly to get the right supply, the right purity, and deliver it to the customer in a timely basis. We call that the integration strategy.
Dustin Olsen (34:57)
That's great. And definitely here at Rare Earth Exchanges, our audience includes a lot of investors — retail and institutional — and they're coming here looking for options. I think this conversation will help illuminate what's out there for those who want to be involved in accelerating the efforts to be independent and self-reliant as a nation. To your point, a lot of players in the industry are sitting on their own dot, in their own silo. We recognize that here at Rare Earth Exchanges as well, and we're trying to build a marketplace where we bring people together and let them know what's out there. I think we're very much aligned — the resources are probably here, we're just still trying to figure out who's in the room.
Harvey Kaye (36:04)
Exactly. That is so well said. We want to be the connective tissue between all of the mines, all of the processors, and all of the supply users. And even though, as we said in Congress, everybody's kind of a friendly competitor — at the end of the day, we're all patriots. I know that sounds a little hokey, but it's true. Many of the people who are involved with us have come from government, from the defense industry, and they are passionate in trying to make sure that this country stands on its own two feet and can help the rest of the world be independent. We want to be a part of that.
Dustin Olsen (37:04)
Well said. And we want to be a part of it too. Harvey, we appreciate you being here on the show. For those interested in reaching out and being more involved with the work you're doing, where is a great place to send them?
Harvey Kaye (37:21)
Anybody who's interested — we'd be delighted to talk with them. We are about to do a mezzanine financing with our bankers as preparation for this public deal we're putting together. We'd be delighted to talk to those who understand the need, understand what we think is a rather unique approach we're taking, and would like to be involved. We welcome any interest that may come forth, and we thank you for that.
Dustin Olsen (37:55)
Awesome. Well Harvey, we'll be in touch.
Harvey Kaye (37:58)
Thank you so much.
